Slowly she begins to lead her mount toward me. Behind her, Shin leaps from roof to roof, but he won’t make it in time. The goddess lifts her bow, the arrow pointed directly at my heart.
Then a body lurches into view, knocking me over. “Dai!” He wraps his arms around my neck, surprisingly strong for a young boy, let alone a badly wounded one. I try to push him away, but he holds tight. Across the street Miki wails in Mask’s arms. “Dai,” I beg, “you have to let go.” But he refuses. Even battered and bleeding, he thinks only of protecting me.
I lift my gaze to the goddess, only to see her watching us, very still upon her mount. For a second, I could swear I see a deep longing in her expression, but then her eyes harden, even as she lowers her bow. “How cowardly, to hide behind a child. But you won’t be with him always, and when you’re alone, when you least expect it, I will appear before you. And I will take what belongs to me.”
I bite my lip to keep from retorting, My soul belongs to me.
The horse rises in the air. Golden cinders leap from its hooves to sizzle in the wind. It gallops upward into the sky, the sea snakes swarming around the goddess.
One sea snake breaks off from the rest and falls to the ground. The snake’s body shrinks to a human shape, revealing a sweaty, scratched, but altogether uninjured Namgi.
Dai’s body goes limp, and I catch him, cradling him in my lap.
Shin arrives, crouching down beside me. “We need to get him back to Lotus House.”
I nod, and gently he lifts Dai in his arms.
Together our battle-worn party moves off, Mask holding an inconsolable Miki, whose cries echo the worry in my heart. As we hurry down the street, I look over my shoulder one last time. The lanterns in the street have all blown out during the battle. The only light comes from the moon, full and glowing, eclipsed by the lone figure of the goddess.
22
Dai is placed in Namgi’s room, one of the two rooms on the bottom floor of the Lotus Pavilion, the other belonging to Kirin. I wait outside in the hall with Miki in my arms, her little body trembling every few minutes. The tremors began when she was first separated from Dai, after he’d saved her from the Imugi. On the walk back to Lotus House, she exhausted herself from crying, yet the trembling hasn’t stopped. She releases another shiver, and I hold her close.
The door to Namgi’s room slides open, and Shin steps out, followed by Kirin.
“How is he?” I ask quietly.
Kirin tightens the bandages around his hand. “He’s strong, for such a small person. He’ll pull through.”
Reaching out, Shin lightly brushes back the wisps of hair that have escaped the tangle of my braid, clinging to my forehead and cheeks. The gentleness of his touch almost undoes the fragile walls I’ve built around my heart.
“I thought you were asleep,” he says. By now, dawn must be breaking over the horizon.
“I want to see him.”
Shin nods, stepping away from the door. As I pass, he says gently, “He’ll be all right, Mina.”
Fighting back tears, I hold his gaze, then Kirin’s. “Thank you.”
Kirin hesitates, then nods.
I enter the room, and Shin closes the door behind me.
Pink and yellow light filters through a closed window, lending a hazy glow to the room. Mask sits on the floor beside Dai, leaning over to pat down the blankets around him. Speaking in hushed voices, neither has noticed my entrance.
“I did good, didn’t I, Mask?” Dai is whispering. “I protected them. Both of them. Like we said we would.”
“Yes,” Mask says softly, “you were very brave.”
In my arms, Miki lets out a gurgle, drawing the attention of Dai. “Miki!” he croaks, opening his arms, only to wince in pain. He draws back into the blankets.
I hurry over, kneeling on the opposite side of the pallet, across from Mask.
I cover my mouth with my hand. “Oh, Dai…”
His black hair is pushed back from his face, revealing mottled bruises along his forehead and jaw. His face is pale, and there’s a cut at the edge of his lips. The blankets obscure the rest of his body, but I can tell he’s in pain by the way he holds himself, lying stiffly on his side, and by the way he keeps himself from reaching for Miki.
“Mask was just saying how brave I am,” Dai says. “Remember this moment, Mina. I will need you to recall it later, when I’m better and she’s being mean to me again.”
Mask chuckles, the expression on her mask that of a smiling grandmother.
“I agree with Mask, Dai,” I say. “You were so very brave. It was terrible, seeing you and Miki beneath the shadow of the Imugi. But you protected her. And you, not so much bigger than her yourself.”